


The Woman Who Lived

by zapmolcuno



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Rewrite, Canonical Character Death, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 06:18:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6144295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zapmolcuno/pseuds/zapmolcuno
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ashildr was just a simple girl with an ordinary life. Until she died. That's when she truly started living.</p><p>[Snapshots in the life of Ashildr, daughter of Einarr]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Death

She was so tired. Tired of messing up. Tired of her head not working right. And finally she had some hope of getting her people through this battle, only to have it stolen away by her own malfunctioning mind. It was her fault. She was the one who provoked The Mire with her declaration of war. She messed up, just as she always did. Only now, her mistake ended in death. She was only grateful that she was the one to die.

Only, she suddenly didn't feel so tired anymore.

In fact, she could open her eyes. And she saw her people smiling, crying, and rejoicing. A gasp escaped her lips, finally able to breathe after being in that torturous limbo. She knew she died, it had to be so, but here she was, living, breathing. Seeing her father once more. And seeing the Doctor, a faint smile on his face and pain in his eyes. It was impossible, but wasn't that what he told her? That he could do the impossible? 

She called out to him. "Doctor -" she said, "Thank you."

"Oh, don't thank me yet, Ashildr. Not yet." he replied.

She didn't understand, but it didn't matter. She soon became tired again, except not in the same way as before. Tired in the way you get after a successful battle, finally able to rest after so much exertion. Tired with a smile on your face, because your effort helped your people win. So she drifted, the sound of euphoric winners lulling her to sleep.


	2. A Curse

It wasn't long before her father died. It was an honorable death, one out on the frontlines of war. She cried for the whole day. The whole month. And she never truly stopped mourning until years later.

Eventually, it became clear that she would never grow old. She outlived little Ragnheiðr, the baby girl who she'd known since her birth. She had visited her on her deathbed, still trying to hold on to the last person who was there when the Doctor helped the village win against The Mire.

"You're a strange girl, Ashildr." Ragnheiðr had said. "Please hold on to the memory of our victory that day, the brightest day in the history of our little village. Carry it with you in your heart, remember it when you are lonely. Remember us when you move on from this place."

Those were her last words.

After that, Ashildr tried not to care anymore. She moved far away from her hometown. She settled in a house outside some village and the townspeople came to ignore her. Aside from whispered rumors and stolen glances, no one engaged her. Only outsiders would try and speak to her, and when they did they would shy away from her cold stare.

For a time, she was considered a witch. She noticed that many people were dying, all before their time. They accused her, the woman who never seemed to grow old, of killing their families. So she moved once more, and the hysteria seemed to end just as quickly as it began.

That was when she noticed that she was starting to forget things. Frantically, she recorded all she could remember of her life. But as she read over it, she became enraged. Angry with the life she'd been cursed with. Her village was dead. She had no friends - she couldn't have friends, they would die all too soon just like the rest. She has to move to a different town every few decades when the townspeople became suspicious. And it was all because of one man:

The Doctor.

\--------------------------------

She called herself "The Nightmare". She became a legend, a scary story mothers would warn their children about, and children would spook their friends with. Often, there would be men who ran into the town screaming that The Nightmare had attacked him and stolen his belongings. And they would try to unmask her, but they never could trace it back to Ashildr.

It was a routine night when the Doctor came back. She was tempted to shoot a rifle into his eye sockets, but even as jaded as she was, she couldn't muster up enough hatred to do anything about it. That day, she was going to rob Lucie Fanshawe, who had bragged about having a valuable amulet to Ashildr. Fanshawe probably thought of them as friends.

When she spotted him, she knew she wouldn't be able to get the amulet with him there. So she let Fanshawe ride off, and tell the story of the first time The Nightmare let someone get away.

She greeted him. "Hello, Doctor."

"Uh, well hello there...do I know you?" he said. Ashildr was mildly surprised.

"It's Ashildr. The girl you cursed to live past her time." she said.

"Ashildr- Ashildr! Oh my god, what are you doing here?"

"You - didn't - come back - for me?" she breathed.

"No, I hadn't known you were here at all. I was just following my curioscanner." with that, he tapped the device he was holding.

"What does it do?" she asked blankly.

"Scans for curios. But never mind that now, Ashildr, how are you?"

"Just fine, amazing actually. Superb. Right jolly good, I'd say." she said, with a sarcastic bite. How did he expect her to be anything less than miserable?

"Alright. I get the point." He said with an exasperated look.

"How could you leave me like this? Leave me to suffer for _eternity_?"

"I didn't..." He furrowed his brow. "I didn't know it would turn out that way. I was doing what I thought was right. But maybe I shouldn't have." he said.

"Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have." she repeated. Death would have been better than this endless curse of eternal heartache.

"Ashildr..." he started.

"No, you know what, make it up to me." she challenged. "Make it up to me by helping me steal something."

"I'm not going to steal anything for you -"

"You _left_ me for _eternity_!"

"Alright, alright." He sighed. And so he followed her to her home.

 --------------------------------

She watched as he skimmed her diaries, and at each tear-stained page, he would glance at her with a pained look.

"You had children?" he asked, absent-mindedly.

"Yes, two of them. They were taken away from me just like everyone else. I vowed never to have children again, after that."

He studied her face before continuing through her books. She wondered if The Doctor had any similar stories. Stories of heartbreak and exhaustion. He was much older than her, after all.

"Did you...have children?"

He froze, and stared at Ashildr for a moment.

"Yes." he said simply.

And she understood. He lost people just as she had. But she couldn't understand why he seemed so...caring. She'd given up caring a long time ago, resolved to live a life of apathy, in order to never have her heart torn apart again. But the Doctor traveled with a mortal girl, Clara, even after having lived this long. Surely he knew that she'd die one day. So why did he still....care? Why did he let people into his heart just to have it ripped apart?

"Doctor -" she started. "Why do you still care?"

"Ashildr...It's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all."

 


	3. Screw-Up

"No... No, you didn't -" she gasped. She froze in place, eyes wide and glued to Clara's neck.

Clara looked frantically back and forth at Ashildr and The Doctor. "What? Go, on then. Take it off." she said.

"I - I - can't -" she breathed. She could only stare at the other woman, who seemed not to know her fate. 

"Why can't you take it back? You just said you would! Take it off! Take it off of me _right now_!" Clara screamed, shaking Ashildr by the shoulders. She could see the tears form in the woman's eyes, and she knew her eyes were filling with tears at the same time.

"Clara, I - When you - When you took the chronolock..." she let out a sob. "...You made it permanent... You're - going - to -" she wheezed after each word, gasping for air as if it would change Clara's fate.

How could she have let this happen? She'd screwed up _again._ Last time, with the Eye of Hades, countless times before that, and now  _this_ \- she failed to account for Clara's heroic nature. Of course she would make sure no one had to die. Of course, of course, _this is how it always ends_. Everyone she loved had to be ripped out of her heart, shredded into pieces in front of her eyes. Unable to do anything to stop it. This is how it always ends.

"Fix this! Fix it _now_." The Doctor said.

"I told you, I can't - Dear God, I swear - If I could, I would save her in a heartbeat." Ashildr replied.

The Doctor strode closer to her, looking like the embodiment of Fury, the representative of Rage itself. "You will save Clara, and you will do it _now_ , or I will rain hell on you _for the rest of eternity_!" he roared, inching closer and closer to Ashildr as if he was going to kill her.

"I can't - I can't - _I can't_ ," she repeated, over and over until she couldn't speak, she couldn't _breathe_. She couldn't bear it any longer. People had always died around her, but even in her long life, she'd never been the direct cause of her loved one's passing.

Yes, she loved Clara, from her wide, sunny smile, to her clever wit. Her light, genuine laugh, her delicate, poised hands. Her warm brown eyes, that you could just curl up inside, forget the world in, forget your pain.

But she would never see the light in her eyes ever again. 

"You _will_ save Clara. Or I will end you, and everything you love. You will pay for this!"

Finally, Clara composed herself, and she immediately jumped in front of the Doctor, protecting Ashildr from his wrath.

"I did this, do you hear me? I did this. This was my fault. Don't blame yourselves for this. It was my choice."

"Clara -" Both she and the Doctor tried to say. But Clara interrupted them once more.

"Ashildr. I know you're thinking this is your fault. But I swear it isn't. You did nothing wrong. There's no way you could have known this would happen. If you blame anyone, you can rightly blame me." she turned to face The Doctor. "Now, you listen to me. You're going to be alone now, and you're very bad at that. You're going to be furious and you're going to be sad, but listen to me. Don't let this change you. No, listen. Whatever happens next..."

Ashildr stopped listening then and focused on drying her tears. Clara was right. She was _always_ right _._ She only wished it didn't have to be this way. That she could somehow magically keep her from dying. That she could pause time, right before her last heartbeat, and whisk her away to a safe place where they could be together, forever onward.

But that would never happen.

As she watched Clara walk out the door, she thought about the words The Doctor said to her a long time ago.

It's better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all? No, no - it was better not to care, not to love. It was a lot less painful.

\----------------------------------

She wrote about this day in her diaries, as she did every day, adding another tear-stained volume to her collection. What was stopping her from burning up the entire place, destroying every last painful memory with it? What was stopping her from saving her future self from reliving her heartache?

But that would mean forgetting the light she saw in Clara's eyes, forgetting an angel like her. And she would never forgive herself for extinguishing that memory. For putting out the light that still glowed, even though its host was lost. See, the light itself was never lost. It burned bright in a new host, a host that would never die.

Yes, she'd never die. Not with Clara's light still shining in her heart.


	4. Light

She shut the doors of the diner quickly and stood there in the doorway. Clara was behind the counter, fixing up something to eat.

"I think I lost them," she said, breathing deeply, as if she'd been running for a long time.

"Got the gem, then?" Clara said, not looking away from her work.

"The gem! Oh, I knew I'd forgotten something." She lied. She had the Gem of Urakanorra, one of the Top 10 Most Precious gemstones in the galaxy - #4, in case you were wondering - right there in her pocket. But she had to lie because she was planning something special with it. Something Clara couldn't know about. Yet.

Suddenly, the doors burst open again, just as Ashildr sat down for a drink.

"Oh my god, that was close!" The woman said.

"You got chased down too, Jenny?" Clara said, pouring coffee into Ashildr's cup.

"Oh, yeah. Those Vextranians are speedy little buggers. One almost chomped my leg clean off!" she said, flipping her long blonde hair out of her eyes and sitting on the stool next to Ashildr.

"Well girls, that was a bust." Ashildr said, taking a sip of her coffee.

"The next time, for sure." Clara replied.

"Agreed." Jenny said.

For a while after, all was quiet as they ate. Then Ashildr whispered something to Jenny.

"You know, wouldn't it be nice to relax for a while? I've heard of a few nice places we could go." Jenny said.

"Really?" Clara asked. She tilted her head thoughtfully. "Yeah, I wouldn't mind a break."

"So, there's one - called Midnight. It's got a nice spa and a beautiful view."

Clara spoke up, "Not that one. The Doctor told me about an incident where his ship was attacked by a monster there."

"Oh, what about Apalapucia? I hear it's nice this time of year." Ashildr offered.

"Oh no, I've got an even better place - Zaakros. It's got the most beautiful flowers in the whole galaxy. It would be _perfect_. I've always wanted to see their Polka-Dotted Zinnias." Jenny had a far off look on her face, hands clasped together in excitement.

"Well, it's settled then. Zaakros it is." Clara said. "Just let me clean up the diner a little, and we'll be off!"

"Here, let me help you out with that." Ashildr said, picking up a washrag and helping to clean the tabletop.

\-------------------------------------------------

Ashildr was nervous. She was having dinner with Clara in one of Zaakros' finest restaurants, the one with the best view of the silver mountains. She paced the area with one hand shoved in her pocket, and the other fiddling with her hair.

Finally she spotted Clara, beautiful as always, smiling and waving from the other side of the room. 

"You - look - positively radiant," she breathed, eyes on her glittering blue dress. She leaned in and kissed her cheek.

"Thank you, Ashildr. You look quite dashing yourself."

"Uh, well...shall we?" Ashildr held out her arm.

"We shall." Clara replied.

The made their way through the restaurant and out onto the balcony, where their seats were waiting. She pulled out Clara's chair for her and took the seat across from her. A waitress came by and they ordered their meal. They talked and laughed until the suns started to set, and it was time for them to go.

"Wait, Clara. There's something I wanted to ask you before we left." Ashildr said as Clara rose from her chair.

"And what's that?" she asked.

"Clara..." Ashildr started. "On the day you died, I was angry and upset. Angry at myself, mostly. I'd sworn off caring about other people, but there was something different about you. I went home that day and wrote down everything I could remember about you, desperate to keep your memory alive. I knew then, that the light from your eyes would live on in my heart." she started to tear up.

"Oh, Ashildr -" Clara said, but she stopped short when Ashildr continued her speech.

"So when I finally met you again, millions and millions of years later, it seemed - I was ecstatic. I knew I could never go another day without seeing your smile. And that's why...I brought you here today."

Clara gasped "You don't mean -"

"Clara Oswin Oswald," Ashildr said, rising from her seat and bending down on one knee. "Will you spend the rest of forever with me?" she took out the ring she'd gotten made, special for Clara. It was a simple silver band and the gem embedded in it, the Gem of Urakanorra, gleamed invitingly.

Clara was breathless. "I - I - You lied to me." she laughed, and Ashildr laughed along with her.

"So is that a yes?

"Of course, Ashildr- Yes, Yes!" Clara leaped to her feet and bent down to give Ashildr a kiss. She slipped the ring on her finger and hugged her new fiancée. she laid kiss after kiss on Clara's neck, crying and laughing and just enjoying being with her on this joyous night.

\-------------------------------------------------

They went back to the Diner, where Jenny was waiting.

"How'd it go?" she asked, setting down her book.

"We're getting married!" Clara said, squealing with delight. Jenny feigned surprise.

"Oh wow..." she said. "I definitely _never_ saw _that_ coming..." Clara hit her on the shoulder.

"You _knew_?" she asked incredulously.

They went on like this for a while, so Ashildr announced that she was going to turn in for the night.

"Good night, soon-to-be-wife." Clara said. Ashildr bent down and kissed her.

"Good night Ash." Jenny called.

"'Night all." And she started down the hallway.

She was exhausted. Finally all the adrenaline caught up with her as she fell on the bed with a dramatic sigh. She was so tired, but not in a bad way. She was tired with a smile on her face. Tired in the way you got after proposing to the love and light of your life.

And it was the best feeling.

 


End file.
